8.3 Movement Concepts: Body, Space, Effort, and Relationships
Key Takeaways
- The Laban-derived movement framework organizes all movement into four concept categories -- body awareness, space awareness, effort, and relationships -- which supply the vocabulary of elementary physical education.
- Movement concepts function as adverbs describing how a skill is performed, while skill themes function as verbs naming the skill itself; combining them generates virtually every elementary PE task.
- Space awareness includes general space versus self space, directions, levels, pathways, and extensions, and teaching self space is the foundational safety concept in elementary physical education.
- Effort qualities comprise time (fast to slow), force (strong to light), and flow (bound to free), and varying them systematically develops movement versatility rather than repetition of one pattern.
- The relationships category covers relationships of body parts, with objects, and with people, and it is where cooperative and competitive tactical concepts begin.
The Framework and Where It Comes From
Contemporary elementary physical education organizes content using a movement framework derived from the work of Rudolf Laban and developed for schools through the Skill Themes approach. The framework separates two things:
- Skill themes are the movements themselves -- the verbs: run, jump, throw, catch, kick, strike, dribble, roll, balance, transfer weight.
- Movement concepts describe how, where, and with what the movement is performed -- the adverbs.
Combining a skill theme with a movement concept generates a task: travel (skill) at a low level along a curved pathway (concepts). This is why the framework matters practically -- it is a generator for endless developmentally appropriate tasks rather than a list to memorize.
The Four Concept Categories
| Category | Question it answers | Components |
|---|---|---|
| Body awareness | What is the body doing? | Body parts; body shapes; actions of body parts; weight bearing and transfer; balance |
| Space awareness | Where does the body move? | Self space and general space; directions; levels; pathways; extensions |
| Effort | How does the body move? | Time; force; flow |
| Relationships | With whom or what does the body move? | Body parts to each other; with objects and apparatus; with people |
Body Awareness
Body shapes: wide, narrow, round, twisted, curled, straight, symmetrical, asymmetrical. Body parts: identifying and isolating parts, leading with a part, matching parts. Actions: curl, stretch, twist, swing, push, pull. Weight bearing and transfer: which parts support the body and how weight moves between them -- the foundation of gymnastics and of safe landing.
Balance: static (held still) and dynamic (maintained while moving). Stability improves with a lower center of gravity, a wider base of support, and the line of gravity kept within the base -- the biomechanics link that makes this concept category more than vocabulary.
Space Awareness
| Component | Options | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Self space | The area a person can reach without traveling | The foundational safety concept: it teaches personal boundaries in a shared space |
| General space | The whole usable area | Traveling safely without collision; awareness of others |
| Directions | Forward, backward, sideways, up, down, right, left | Movement versatility; defensive footwork |
| Levels | Low, medium, high | Dodging, guarding, catching, gymnastic variety |
| Pathways | Straight, curved, zigzag | Evading a defender; route running; choreography |
| Extensions | Near to or far from the body; large or small movements | Reach, guarding distance, expressive range |
Self space is the first thing effective elementary teachers establish, because a class that understands and respects self space can then move safely through general space. A common instructional error is starting with travel and adding safety rules afterward.
Effort
| Quality | Continuum | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Time | Fast to slow; sudden to sustained | Accelerating on a sprint; a slow controlled balance |
| Force | Strong to light | A powerful kick versus a soft toss to a partner |
| Flow | Bound (stoppable, controlled) to free (continuous, hard to stop) | Bound: a controlled gymnastics sequence. Free: a full run-up and jump |
Effort is the category teachers most often neglect, and it is where movement versatility is built. A student who can only throw hard cannot place a soft lob over a defender; a student who can only move fast cannot control a deceleration or a feint. Systematically varying effort qualities is what turns a single skill into an adaptable one.
Relationships
| Type | Examples |
|---|---|
| Of body parts | Round, twisted, symmetrical or asymmetrical shapes; one part leading |
| With objects and apparatus | Over, under, around, through, in front of, behind, alongside, on, off |
| With people | Alone in a mass; solo; partners; groups; leading and following; mirroring and matching; unison and contrast; meeting and parting; cooperating; competing |
The relationships category is where tactical understanding begins. Meeting and parting in kindergarten becomes creating and closing space in a middle school invasion game. Leading and following becomes give and go. Teaching the concept early with the framework's vocabulary makes the tactical language of games familiar years before the games themselves.
Generating Tasks with the Framework
The framework's practical value is task generation. Take one skill theme and systematically vary the concepts:
| Skill theme | Concept variation | Task |
|---|---|---|
| Dribbling | Levels | Dribble at a low level, then at a high level |
| Dribbling | Pathways | Dribble along a zigzag pathway between markers |
| Dribbling | Effort -- time | Dribble slowly, then accelerate on a signal |
| Dribbling | Relationships -- people | Dribble while keeping your body between the ball and a partner |
| Dribbling | Space -- general | Dribble in general space without contacting anyone |
Each task is a genuine progression, not a repetition. This is also how a teacher differentiates in place: the same task with different concept constraints raises or lowers difficulty without singling anyone out.
Where the Framework Fits Developmentally
| Grade span | Emphasis |
|---|---|
| Pre-K to grade 2 | Learning the concept vocabulary itself; self space and general space; exploring each concept with simple locomotor and manipulative skills |
| Grades 3-5 | Combining concepts with maturing skill themes; applying concepts in small-group and modified game settings |
| Middle school | Concepts become tactical language -- creating space, changing pace, using levels and pathways to evade |
| High school | Applied within game tactics, dance composition, and personal fitness activity design |
The concepts do not disappear after elementary school; they change from explicit vocabulary into the analytic language teachers and students use to describe and improve performance.
Common Praxis Traps
- Trap 1: Confusing skill themes with movement concepts. Skills are verbs; concepts describe how, where, and with what.
- Trap 2: Misplacing flow. Flow is an effort quality, not a space concept.
- Trap 3: Treating self space and general space as the same. Self space is the personal reach area; general space is the shared usable area.
- Trap 4: Skipping self space instruction. It is the foundational safety concept.
- Trap 5: Neglecting effort. Varying time, force, and flow is what builds versatility.
A second-grade teacher asks students to travel through the gymnasium along a zigzag pathway at a low level without touching anyone. Which movement concept categories are being applied?
Flow, described along a continuum from bound to free, belongs to which movement concept category?
A student can throw with force but cannot execute a soft lob over a defender's outstretched arms. Which movement concept should instruction emphasize to address this limitation?
A kindergarten teacher teaching 'meeting and parting' with partners is laying the foundation for which later tactical concept?